When I applied to college, one of the essay questions was Why do you really want to go to Northwestern? In other words, what would you really do with a Northwestern degree? I found the answer quite simple: I wanted to go to Northwestern because I wanted to be a Muppet. Really, can you think of a more noble, more exciting career than educating and entertaining the children of the world while impersonating a furry monster? (That’s not what you thought I would write, was it!)

Well, they believed me at NU, and accepted me. In my 4 years there, I changed majors a few times, but eventually graduated with a degree in Communications Studies (yes, I do use my degree every day), and concentration degrees in French (no, I don’t use that one), and Creative Writing for the Media (what do you think?). I also had minors in sailing and fundraising. Between the fall of 1994 and the spring of 1998, I sailed in Iowa, Ohio, California, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Indiana, Oregon, Minnesota, and probably a few other states I don’t remember right now. All of that sailing included 9 National Championships and a Good Will Regatta. I also danced 120 hours and raised close to $60,000 for Dance Marathon. Let’s just say that I multi-task well.

After college, I sailed some more. Went to Antarctica. Coached sailing. Taught 9th grade English. Substituted in a Catholic school. Went to grad school and got my master’s degree from Harvard in Technology Innovation and Education. Worked for the Navy as a lot of things. Yes, I was a knowledge manager, an instructional designer, and a human systems integration specialist. In other words, I did a lot of research and built a ton of PowerPoint briefs. After that, I came back to K-12 and spent 6 years as the Director of Academic Technology at St. Michael’s Country Day School in Newport. In July 2011, I started working for EdTechTeacher as a professional learning instructor, and in the fall of 2015 I went back to school to earn my doctorate at Johns Hopkins in Entrepreneurial Leadership in Education. In August of 2018, I completed my doctorate (care to read a 300+ page dissertation?) and then took on a postdoctoral fellowship at The University of Rhode Island where I conducted a mixed-methods study of The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! in collaboration with the Center for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and PBSKids.  

So, to bring you to present day, years after graduating from NU, I am neither a puppeteer nor wearing a fuzzy costume. I lead research and measurement work as a Partner at The Learning Accelerator (TLA). I also write for a number of publications and speak when people say that they would like to listen to me (either in-person or online).

Yep, definitely muppet-like!